Comments on: Email Bankruptcy Followup

By: Debbie Weil

Debbie Weil — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:52:10 +0000

Good catch Jeff. Funny how all those megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes blend together.

By: Jackie Danicki

Jackie Danicki — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:48:53 +0000

…Whereas I hate people calling me (interruptive, and my work requires me to be ‘in the zone’ – a zone hard to get back into once snatched out of it) and even say explicitly on my biz cards that: “I prefer email. I mean, I REALLY prefer email.”

Sitting on emails is what will kill me, though. I’m going to add a sig to my emails reading, “Please excuse my brevity and do not mistake it for abruptness; I’m trying to plow through 500+ unread emails! Thanks for your understanding.” I already send lots of very short mails, but waste some time using soft language and a bit more chattiness than necessary, just so people don’t think I’m being short with them. Hopefully the sig will free me to be more brief.

By: Matt Brezina

Matt Brezina — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:16:17 +0000

Jeff,

Iâ€™m continually enthused by the enormous opportunity to improve email. As you said, â€œI canâ€™t give up on email, itâ€™s the single most essential communication tool I have.â€ Xobniâ€™s goal is to help you understand your email usage and derive value from all the data trapped in your inbox. More broadly, Xobni makes email suck less.

Thanks for the shout out. Weâ€™ll make sure to get you on an early version of the beta when it becomes available.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:02:26 +0000

Jeff-
This theme certainly peaked the interest of both readers and the mainstream media. Malcolm Gladwell talks about how we are building “immunity” to email. Here’s my post on it: http://replytoall.typepad.com/reply_to_all/2007/06/email_immunity_.html
Robert

By: Comment Day « TechFold

Comment Day « TechFold — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:31:44 +0000

[...] Venture Chronicles – email bankruptcy [...]

By: rod /techfold.com

rod /techfold.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:30:24 +0000

Oddly enough, I rely more heavily on email over time. I find the ability to converse asynchronously – as opposed to real time over phone or IM – very helpful – email minimizes the interruption factor, as you call it, which for me is the most frustrating part of overload.

The other thing I loathe is voicemail. The average voicemailer is dismal at communicating the key points of whatever they called to say; I can’t count the number of messages I’ve deleted out of hand b/c of this.

Final note: my “favorite” voicemails/phonecalls are when someone calls to tell me that they just sent me an email. Thanks, dude.

Anyway – cool that the notion of bankruptcy struck such a nerve.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:10:32 +0000

Nicely written Debbie.

PS- there’s a typo:
“I’ve got close to 2MB of email”

should be “I’ve got close to 2GB of email”

By: Debbie Weil

Debbie Weil — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:41:18 +0000

P.S. The Guardian article mentions you as well

By: Debbie Weil

Debbie Weil — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:39:42 +0000

Jeff,

The Guardian asked me to write an article about email bankruptcy after I blogged about Fred. It’s a topic that captures people’s fancy! It ran Monday June 11th here: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2100438,00.html